Why You Never Have Enough Time
TL;DR
I found out that my biggest challenges with time management were lack of clarity, and lack of productivity, so I put together a system to enforce them, doubled my productivity in 30 days, and then made a Chrome extension to show me my goals and time remaining, every time I opened a new tab.
What would you do differently, if you knew exactly where you wanted to go, and how much time is left to get there?
Two months ago, I ran a 30-day experiment to help me answer that question.
It all started on a Sunday morning, when I woke up overwhelmed by the feeling that I never seem to have enough time in my life, so I decided to do a quick reality check of how I was using my time.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was wasting so much of my time, despite the systems and tools that I had in place to manage it.
I had my to-do lists, but I struggled to know which task to work on next.
I knew my long term goals, but I often lost track of the big picture when I got busy working on complex tasks.
I started many projects, but I abandoned them half way, when I forgot why I was doing them in the first place.
I said yes to many meetings, calls, and interruptions, when I didn’t have a good reason to say no.
And I spent hours every day, scrolling through random people’s posts and activity feeds, because I wanted to “kill time”.
Digging deeper, I realized that those weren’t the real challenges, but rather symptoms of my two biggest challenges: lack of clarity, and lack of urgency.
In other words, I wasted a lot of time when I didn’t know where I wanted to go, and when I thought I had all the time in the world to get there.
Clarity was the carrot, and urgency was the stick. I wasted my time when I didn't have both.
So I ran a 30-day experiment with one goal in mind: to create enough clarity and urgency to put my life back on track.
Creating clarity
I grabbed a stack of index cards, and labeled five of them: Life, Year, Month, Week, and Day. Then for each card, I create a list of 7 goals that I wanted to accomplish during that period.
Why only 7?
I needed a number low enough to keep myself from being overwhelmed, and that fits in my short term memory.
Starting with the Life Card, I brainstormed 7 things that I wanted to accomplish before I died. Then grabbed the Year Card, and wrote 7 goals that will get me a step or two closer to the goals on the Life Card. And then I did the same for current Month, and Week.
When I got to the Day Card, deciding what to work on next became much easier: I just needed to list the tasks that will get me a step closer to accomplishing the goals on the Week Card, which, in turn, would get me a step closer to accomplishing current month’s goals, and so on.
Because I had created clarity from the top down, I had no problem deciding today’s tasks.
Later that day, I transferred my cards to a Trello board called “Altitude”, created five lists for Life, Year, Month, Week and Day, and added the corresponding goals from each index card.
I had my clarity system set up.
Creating urgency
The clarity exercise took close to an hour.
But remembering my goals wasn’t enough, I also needed to remember how much time I had left to accomplish them.
Inspired by Year_Progress, I wanted to see some progress bars for how much of Life, Year, Month, Week and Day is over, and how much is remaining.
After doing some research, I found a page that provided a progress bar for life, and another that showed a progress bar for the year, month and day
Looking at an estimate of how much life has elapsed was depressing at first, but it quickly became inspiring when I started looking at how much is left, and at what I wanted to accomplish during that time.
As long as there is time left, it's never too late to start!
Having also realized that most of my time-wasting activities happened after opening a new browser tab to load Facebook, YouTube or Reddit, I decided to use that new tab to trigger my urgency system.
I set the life progress bar page as Chrome’s startup page, and installed a Chrome Extension that replaced the new tab with progress bars for current year, month and day.
With that system in place, I started my 30-day experiment:
- Every Sunday, I would look at what I wanted to get done that month, and list my goals for the upcoming week.
- Every morning, I would look at what I wanted to get done that week, and write down my goals for the Day.
- Every time I start Chrome, I see a progress bar of my life
- Every time I open a new tab, I see how much time I have left this year, month and day.
The results
The first thing I noticed was that I always knew what to work on any given day, because a quick review of that week’s goals helped me figure it out.
As I worked on various tasks,I was feeling how each was tied to the bigger picture, had a good reason to be done, and was getting me closer to a specific destination.
On many occasions, when I opened a new tab to kill time at one of my favorite social media sites, I saw the time progress bars, got my reality check, and closed that tab right away.
And when I received invitations to jump on a call, join a meeting, or attend an event, I revisited the Trello board, and if that meeting didn’t fit anywhere in that picture, I replied with a “No, thank you!”
At the end of the first week, I had checked off more goals than I had accomplished in the previous 2 weeks combined. I had doubled my productivity, reduced my stress level, and had some free time left to enjoy.
That was simply accomplished by having a carrot (clarity) pulling me toward my goals, and a stick (urgency) pushing me away from wasting my limited time.
And after the 30 days were over, it was clear to me that I had created a system that I will, most likely, be using and improving for a long time to come.
Alto: life’s snapshot from a higher altitude
The system that I had created was, in some sense, a high-altitude snapshot of my life. And the more frequently I visited it, the faster I adjusted the course toward my destinations.
That system, however, had some drawbacks: it was scattered across three different tools, and required several daily reminders to review the big picture.
I needed to create a simple dashboard that combined those tools in one place, that showed up when I needed it, and that faded into the background when I was focused on my best work.
And that’s when Alto was born!
Alto is a Chrome extension that replaces the browser’s blank new tab with progress bars for your life, year, month, week and day.
Clicking on one of those items reveals a secondary panel, where you can add up to 7 goals to accomplish during that period.
Every time you open a new Chrome Tab, you are presented with a snapshot of your goals and time, providing you with the clarity and urgency to keep your life on track.
Alto is available for free at the Chrome Web Store
If you’re looking for a way to help you decide what to work on next, to keep track of your big picture, to avoid distractions and interruptions, and have enough time to spend with your loved ones, give Alto a try for the next 30 days!
